I’ve written in other threads that my sister-in-law/pediatrician’s practice will no longer accept parents who won’t vaccinate their children after an infant died of Whooping Cough. This is a very high-end practice with parents who are used to getting their way, but so far, all have agreed, albeit some on a modified schedule.
I wasn’t talking just about politicians there. However, I did just give you a quote by Cuomo that cast doubt on the FDA and CDC, with zero supporting evidence. But somehow these organizations instantly became reliable again when Biden took office.
There has been bipartisan support for GMO labeling laws, despite the continued lack of evidence of harm caused by GMO foods. It’s just as unscientific as any antivax views (which themselves continue to be held by both the left and right). And this isn’t a fringe belief. At least in 2016, ~40% of both Democrats and Republicans thought that GMOs were actively worse for health. I can’t find any newer data than that, but I’d be shocked if it changed at all.
ETA: Another Pew poll:
Democrats are substantially behind Republicans in their support for nuclear power, even though they should be well ahead given their baseline support for carbon-free energy sources. But long-held anti-scientific opposition to nuclear power (and a false connection to nuclear weapons) holds them back.
Believe it or not, at one time even the Sierra Club was a strong proponent of nuclear energy.
It is kinda sad that a doctor can refuse to accept anti-vax families while public schools cannot require everyone to buy in to the whole Herd thing.
And to be clear, I’m not disputing the idea that there’s been some realignment between parties when it comes to pseudoscience. I saw this article about raw milk today:
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/03/10/the-alt-right-rebrand-of-raw-milk-00145625
It is a little weird that this went from some hippie-dippy thing to conservative virtue signaling. The article has some ideas but I don’t think it’s entirely complete. And the legalization efforts aren’t entirely one sided, either.
COVID specifically did prompt some changes here, but some of those factors were already well in motion. And in some sense part of the backlash was entirely rational, given how badly some institutions screwed up. Though as always, people tend to have a hard time separating distinct things and so valid complaints about (say) lockdown effectiveness get translated into invalid skepticism about vaccines. Or raw milk or a bunch of other things.
But also weird is that the left seemed to gain trust in institutions, even though that was at least as undeserved as the huge lack of trust on the right. Almost as if it’s all just tribal signalling…